Margareta Witt

Margareta Witt was a Swedish Lutheran missionary and nurse who, in the 1870s, accompanied her father Otto Witt on a mission to South Africa. They set up a mission center at Rorke's Drift, and they lived among the Zulus and converted many of them, including their chief Cetshwayo, to Protestantism. In January 1879, the British Army occupied Rorke's Drift at the start of the Anglo-Zulu War and converted the mission into an army outpost; Margareta nursed the wounded as her father attempted to convince Lieutenant John Chard to let him evacuate the wounded on humanitarian grounds. However, Otto Witt's persuasion of the Natal Native Contingent to desert the outpost and his frequent insubordination against the British officers led to Lieutenant Chard sending both of the Witts out of Rorke's Drift in a carriage.